Titanium bike frame ( All You Need To Know)

Titanium bike frames are something that everyone is talking about these days. So guys the name covers today’s topic. Hi, this is Ben with some fresh research on one of your favorite topics. I hope most of you have searched Google to land this suitable information about titanium frames. But you haven’t got enough information to make the decision on which frame suits your needs. This good news, is that you have landed on the right place to get accurate knowledge to make the right decision. Lets go straight into the topic without wasting any time.

Before going in depth about titanium bike frames. I think we should know about what titanium is. So let’s go, we’ve looked at the myths surrounding carbon fiber. We’ve lifted the lid on aluminum. Titanium bike frame We’ve investigated whether steel is in fact real; it was. But, there is still a big gap in the GCN Material Sciences Course. And that, is titanium. For a while, in the early ’90s, titanium was going to be the next big thing. And to be fair, it briefly was, but little by little it became eclipsed by carbon fiber.

Titanium bike frame Nevertheless though, it still has a legion of super loyal fans, and quite right too. So if you’re not onboard the titanium train yet, or perhaps more accurately, military aircraft or submarine, what do you need to know? (relaxed chill music) Despite having the reputation that it’s the preserve of the Russian or American military, which to be fair, it kind of was, titanium is actually the ninth most common element in the earth’s crust. And as well as using it to make bikes, you can also find it in sun cream and paper, to make it whiter.

Necessary Things About titanium bike frame Creation

Clearly though, what makes paper white doesn’t really help very much when you’re making bikes, other than perhaps drawing up your initial ideas, and that is because it’s titanium oxide that’s used in paper, whereas when we’re making bikes we need a titanium alloy. Titanium bike frame The very first titanium bikes were actually though made out of pure titanium, but they were very flexible and they weren’t very much good. And it wasn’t until a titanium alloy called 3AL/2.5V that that changed, having blended in 3% aluminum and 2.5% vanadium.

Titanium bike frame The other common titanium alloy for bikes is 6AL/4V. Both have a very high Young’s modulus, which is a measure of the stiffness of the material, so they have a gPA of about 110 as opposed to, let’s say 6061 aluminum, which has a GPa about about 69.

So six-four titanium has an MPa of 1000, whereas again 6061 aluminum has an MPa of just 270. And what that means is that the material won’t deform or bend or buckle in a crash. Three two-five actually has a lower yield strength than six-four titanium, but then that’s one of the reasons why it is used almost exclusively in bike-building, because six-four titanium is incredibly hard to work with. Titanium bike frame It’s more brittle and less ductile, so forming it into simple shapes, like, I don’t know, tubes for a start, is incredibly hard.

Titanium bike frame And actually most six-four titanium tubes are rolled from sheet metal and then welded, whereas three-2.5 tends to be seamless. And so that actually gives a more consistent overall tube, and therefore is better from a quality control perspective. So in other words, basically, although on paper the material properties of six-four titanium might look better, it won’t necessarily yield a better bike.

However, given what we’ve just heard about the other material properties, you can still see why titanium frames tend to come out slightly lighter than aluminum ones. So, the best examples of each would be about 1000 grams for a titanium frame and about 1100 grams for aluminum. So, 100 grams in it. And the reason that difference is actually still quite small is probably down to a measure of just how much easier it is to work and manipulate aluminum, and we we’ll come on to that a little bit later on Titanium bike frame.

Titanium bike frame And we also have to bear in mind that super light titanium frames will also have exceedingly thin-walled tubing as a result of that extra density. And then when we compare it to steel, titanium is as strong but 45% less dense. And so that explains why titanium frames are significantly lighter than steel. That toughness in terms of material properties does make titanium very difficult to work with, as we’ve already touched on.

One of those things is that internally butted tubes can’t be made safely from titanium. Basically the danger is that titanium can be overworked, and then that would lead to a weakness in the material. Titanium bike frame Now on the flip side, what you can do is externally butt the tubing, so instead of a mandrel working away inside the tube, titanium is shaved off from the outside.

Why the bike (taps frame) is made out of straight gauge titanium tubing

Titanium is also a little bit trickier to weld than steel or aluminum, and that’s because it’s reactive to oxygen at higher temperatures, meaning that when it is welded, it needs to be done in an absence of that gas.

Titanium bike frame So to put it in context, if you’re welding steel an acceptable purge, so called, needs to be about 1000 parts of oxygen per million, whereas with titanium, it’s just 10 parts per million. So that is a little bit of challenge to a welder, and if any oxygen does get into the weld, then the titanium oxidizes. Titanium bike frame Which, if you remember from earlier in the video, is a very white, almost worthless white powder. The technique then is to weld in an inert argon atmosphere, so basically you pipe argon gas into the tubes, and then externally to the weld as well, but then that ensures that it’s all nice and strong.

The last thing that can make titanium a bit tricky is working. So you see, we mentioned earlier that aluminum can be engineered and manipulated into all sorts of complicated shapes, but with titanium, even bending a simple S-bend chainstay, for example, extreme care has to be taken you don’t overwork the material which can then lead to it becoming brittle and therefore weak. In order to avoid that, the titanium needs to be annealed, which is where you heat it up and then you allow it to cool down slowly in between each incremental step of the process. Titanium bike frame It’s quite time consuming, labor intensive, and it’s another reason why titanium bikes tend to be quite expensive. Is it expensive though? Well, yes compared to aluminum bikes.

But it’s probably on a part with custom steel, and significantly cheaper, you’ve got to say, than top-end carbon fiber. So the raw material is between $10 and $12 per kilo. Finished tubes are between $100 to $120 per kilo. But that puts it a little bit more than standard steel and on a par with stainless steel. Titanium bike frame But dare I say though.

Why titanium has such a loyal following and can be, frankly, so great

Titanium bike frame To be fair, we’ve given you an awful lot of information so far. But we’ve not quite got to the nub yet of. You can get a custom titanium frame really quite easily and it’s going to be considerably lighter than an equivalent custom steel frame, so about 400 grams lighter. I’d guess an average custom steel frame is about 1600 grams; titanium could be about 1200 grams.

Which is pretty important if you are looking to build a super light road bike. Yes titanium is reactive, but your frame is not going to corrode, not like steel, not like aluminum; it is going to last. Titanium bike frame And so for many people, the Ti bike is the keeper. Beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder, but I think titanium has undeniably a special something. I mean look at the raw finish on this; it’s like it’s glowing.

Ah, the ride quality, even harder to pin down than aesthetics. Now traditionally, titanium has a ride feel like no other. But the boundaries between materials are blurring; engineering is taking things to new places. So steel can now be as stiff as aluminum; aluminum can now be as forgiving as carbon fiber. But titanium traditionally has always been about zing. I heard it described back in the day like a great titanium frame was trying to spring forward and gain momentum off every bump or ripple in the road.

Titanium bike frame And that, to my mind, sounds pretty amazing. Now unfortunately, I’ve literally never spent any proper time on a titanium bike. So at some point soon I hope to remedy that. Well there is your Titanium 101. Hopefully you can add it now as a material that you know as much about as steel, aluminum, and carbon fiber

How are titanium bikes made?

It starts with the initial consultation with a customer after a bike fit. I can translate all that data onto a bike tear drawing so that we can make the perfect frame for them. The first thing then is to select the choose the jig is then set up and then the four tubes are my turds. It’s very important that there are no contaminants. Titanium bike frame So we use tools and a jig just for titanium.

It will then go to to the welder, who will and will tack weld everything in place. We tap the frame together so the top and the bottom of the tubes. The frame that way just keeps keeps those angles together laughter tactic. We take it off the jig and then i weld it in the freestanding the frame sort of takes about four or five hours to world.

There’s a lot of pressure. I mean with with this a neom you know most people don’t paint it. Titanium bike frame Obviously the first thing that people look at with a with a will is the fish tails. That’s what people would generally recognized as a good weld. If it’s nice and neat but as as a frame builder and as a manufacturer what’s very very important. When you willed the frame is the color of the weld immediately after welding it has to be clear.

It has to be a straw color if it’s anything other than those colors. Then quite possibly it’s a bad weld. Next step is to ream them face the head tube to face the bottom bracket and tap out the threads. And then to room receipt to the reaming is cutting the internal hole inside the tubes to an exact size. Titanium bike frame It’s ready to accept something like on the head tube see a headset compress straight in.

And we do it because they come slightly oversized without excess material. So when you weld it it won’t distort so mchale. The excess material so it’s the correct inside size. Well the next steps is very crucial. It’s the tracking of the frame obviously. It’s extremely important frames in perfect alignment. We’ve got a table and alignment table. Where the bottom bracket slips in to a cup.

We’ve made and then we use a square to to measure up down the top tube. You’ve got obviously standard vinyl. You can put on you’ve got a mirror polishing. Which is a nice. It’s a popular popular finish for us is. Titanium bike frame I bling sort of shiny effects or frame and you’ve got be finishing. It gives that sort of stealthy dark look. You think gots a anodizing and then obviously paint as well so it just needs logos and then built into a bike.

Titanium bike frame Video

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